What Happened to Akon City? Inside the Collapse of a $6 Billion Dream

The highly publicized Akon City project, once billed as a futuristic $6 billion smart city in Senegal, has officially been shelved, according to Senegalese authorities.

Speaking to the BBC, Serigne Mamadou Mboup, head of SAPCO (Senegal’s tourism development agency), confirmed:

“The Akon City project no longer exists.”

The announcement marks the formal end of a project that once promised to transform 800 hectares of coastal land near Mbodiène, about 100km south of Dakar, into a high-tech, eco-friendly urban hub powered entirely by renewable energy.

Unveiled in 2018 by American singer Alioune Badara Thiam, globally known as Akon, the project captured global imagination with bold comparisons to Wakanda, the fictional African metropolis featured in Marvel’s Black Panther.

It was set to be a modern utopia complete with a hospital, shopping mall, school, police station, waste center, and solar power plant  and built in phases starting with a 2023 target for phase one.

However, five years later, the site remains mostly untouched. The only physical evidence of the project is an unfinished reception building. There are no roads, no housing, no power grid  and no progress.

Local residents, who had been hopeful the project would bring jobs and development, have expressed disappointment.

“We were promised jobs and development,” one resident told the BBC. “Instead, nothing has changed.”

In addition to construction delays, the project’s financial backbone  Akon’s own cryptocurrency Akoin,  has faced legal and logistical challenges. Senegal’s official currency is the CFA franc, regulated by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), which, like many central banks, has been skeptical of cryptocurrencies.

Akon himself admitted to mismanagement around Akoin, saying:

“It wasn’t being managed properly , I take full responsibility for that.”

Despite the collapse of Akon City as originally envisioned, SAPCO says it has reached a new agreement with Akon for a more “realistic project” that it will fully support. Details of this revised plan have not yet been made public.

The land in Mbodiène still holds strategic importance, especially as Senegal prepares to host the 2026 Youth Olympic Games, which are expected to drive tourism and investment.

While the dream of a “Wakanda in West Africa” has faded, both Akon and the Senegalese government appear determined to find a new path forward for the site  this time grounded in practicality over ambition.